Paul Meunier 

Hi, everyone, Paul here. I want to let you know that in this episode, we have a pretty candid conversation about a suicide attempt. This may be difficult for some people to hear. And if you're having thoughts about suicide, or know someone who is, I want you to know that there's help out there. And I encourage you to call 988, which is the suicide and crisis lifeline. Please know your friends at YIPA care about you. Okay, on to the show, I hope you like it.

Ashley Daniels 

When you stand up against ableism, you are standing against the very foundations of how a lot of these systemic structures like the medical field, education, like the law itself, were built upon. And it's not just ableism that these systems are built on. They're also built on racism and sexism and xenophobia and classism, and so intersectionally you have to challenge them all in order to be able to provide equitable education or equitable medical service.

Paul Meunier 

Hello, I'm Paul Meunier, the executive director of the Youth Intervention Programs Association, and I'm a youth worker at heart. How lucky am I? I have the privilege to meet youth workers from around the globe and learn their stories and share them with the entire world. I'm glad you're listening because together we'll learn how their life experiences shape their youth work. As you listen, I encourage you to consider how your experiences shape what you have to offer young people. Welcome to this edition of The Passionate Youth Worker.

Paul Meunier 

Hi, everybody. In today's episode, we have the privilege of speaking with Ashley Daniels from Minnesota in the United States. She is a resilient soul who has navigated a turbulent upbringing marked by the looming threat of abuse from her father, and the persistent emotional bullying from her siblings. Despite the shadows that darkened her childhood, Ashley's academic brilliance prevailed, earning straight A's. Her life took a profound turn when she received diagnoses of autism and ADHD. These revelations became pivotal moments, guiding Ashley toward a journey of self-awareness, acceptance, and adaptation. Through sheer determination and resilience, Ashley has embraced her conditions, learning to navigate the intricacies of neurodiversity. Her journey of self-discovery has not only transformed her own life, but it's also ignited a passion for helping young people. Ashley is now a fierce champion for the rights of neurodivergent individuals, tirelessly advocating against ableism and promoting understanding and inclusion. Let's get started as Ashley shares her inspiring story of resilience and empowerment. Welcome, Ashley, to The Passionate Youth Worker podcast.

Ashley Daniels 

Thank you so much for having me, Paul. I'm really grateful.

Paul Meunier 

I'm really grateful that you agreed to be a guest, and I'm really eager to get started. Are you ready to go?

Ashley Daniels 

Yes.

Paul Meunier 

Great. The environment that you grew up in sounds like it was a little turbulent, maybe a little tough. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about your family?

Ashley Daniels 

Yeah, so I grew up the middle child of three siblings. I have an older sister and a younger brother. And I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, my whole life. My family never moved. They just really enjoyed the house that we grew up in and have so many memories there. But specifically, about my family, there's a lot of stigma about growing up in a family where someone is an alcoholic and someone who is a very angry alcoholic to the point where you know children in that circumstance are told that we're not allowed to talk about it. We're not allowed to bring up concerns, we're not allowed to share the traumas that we go through because of how much of a one-way glass mirror it feels like where everyone on the outside just sees your family and thinks that it's this perfect dynamic. But on the inside, you know what's going on and your family, especially like your parents, pressure you into like, feeling like you can't talk about it, that you're not allowed to have a truth. And so yeah, that's a lot of how I felt in my family. And don't get me wrong. I do love my family. I I have a lot of great memories of my family. And also at the same time, I would be remiss if I said that my childhood wasn't difficult, especially as a undiagnosed autistic ADHD child and throughout my life, developing mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, because of a lot of the traumas that I went through, as well as the trauma of being undiagnosed and navigating my life and not understanding who I am wholeheartedly as a person. But then at 25, developing non-epileptic seizures, which has been something that has been very difficult and a struggle to navigate through and to be able to, you know, try and vocalize those experiences can be challenging.

Paul Meunier 

I bet they can be. And thank you for sharing a little bit about your family. Often, when we grow up in chaotic environments, it has nothing to do with love. It just has to do with what reality is and what we have to adapt to and adjust to. And I know your siblings were also kind of hard on you. And being the middle child, I was just wondering, from your perspective, why do you think your siblings, you know, were tough and bullied you the way they did?

Ashley Daniels 

I would say so first and foremost, I would say that I don't blame them at all for how they treated me. I do think that the way they treated me was a byproduct of how they were treated and the traumas that they were going through. And also, the fact that my whole family knew I was different, like, my brother, and my sister knew I was different. My mom and my dad knew I was different. But I didn't know I was different. And so, I never understood why people picked on me, why people bullied me. And especially with my siblings, I just wanted to be just like them and to fit in with them and to be loved and accepted by them. And it was such a struggle for me to understand, especially when I was struggling in school with socializing with my peers. Okay, I'm struggling here. But also, why are my siblings treating me this way too. And so I genuinely felt alone, like I had nobody. And the only living being that I felt like I could rely on was our family dog. Like that, to me, was like, the only constant in my life for a very long time where she kind of stepped in as a service animal. But growing up knowing and feeling like everybody else around you knows you're different and treats you differently, but you don't know you're different because you're struggling to navigate the world as an undiagnosed autistic ADHDer or AutiHDers for short. It was really challenging. And, yeah, again, I know that their experiences were a byproduct of their traumas. And just because that was their experience, it doesn't justify how they treated me. But it helps me to better understand so I can heal and forgive and build relationships with them again.

Paul Meunier 

You have a wonderful perspective and a deep sense of care and concern for them. That comes through. But yet the reality was they did treat you hard because that's kind of what they had to do to survive in the environment it sounds like. And that must have been hard. I know you mentioned when we were getting to know each other you didn't speak until you were four years old. So clearly, kind of everybody saw you were a little different. And sometimes young kids don't know how to deal with that, so they tease and bully and all those kinds of things too. But then as you went through, and you started to notice that maybe your mental health wasn't as good as you thought it could be or should be. When do you think you started tuning in, Ashley, to maybe some of these other things that you were dealing with, anxiety and depression and things like that?

Ashley Daniels 

Yeah, so I started noticing a shift in myself when I was 13 years old. I had gotten gone through a lot of really hard experiences. And at that point, at 13 years old, I had already gone through bullying. I was groomed by a family friend, or one of my best friend’s family friend, and going through multiple, like being sexually assaulted and touched before the age of 13. And having those experiences on top of being an undiagnosed autistic ADHDer who was nonspeaking and was put into so many programs like speech because again, I didn't speak. I was put in gymnastics because I couldn't walk without falling over myself due to dyspraxia, which is like a comorbid type of disability that exists alongside autism and a lot of evaluators do see dyspraxia as like a pre-diagnosis like this is something that a lot of autistic people experience, but not everybody does. But it can be in the pre-screening process for some who are diagnosed with autism at a young age. And so going through all of those experiences, feeling like I was broken, feeling like I've gone through this much in my life and not understanding any of it. I really started to struggle with depression at the age of 13. And really struggling with what is my purpose in life? What am I even here for? And really struggling with self-harm and suicidal ideation and trying very hard not to follow through with those thoughts because they can be really intrusive when you're going through them. And especially when you feel alone, and you feel like the world is just so hard to navigate. It can feel even harder and feel more isolating and can make you feel more alone.

Paul Meunier 

Thank you for sharing such a deep personal story. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been. All these things had to be confusing to you, as a young person, trying to make sense of it and put some structure around you so you could learn how to cope. And I know, things just kind of kept getting worse and worse, even though you were doing well in school, your well-being kind of was really struggling. And I, you know, you attempted suicide at age 19. Can you talk a little bit about what you did that led up to that point and then how have you learned to keep yourself safe since then?

Ashley Daniels 

Yeah, so I just want to say as far as my academics, my academics were my survival mechanism that I knew that if I got good grades, that I would not be abused. So, my grades were the way that I kept myself safe. And when I went to college and finally moved out of my parent's house and I wasn't in that environment anymore, it was as if all of the skills that I had used to get straight A's to be a good student completely collapsed on me. Where I considered failing, receiving an A-minus or lower because of how scared I was to be abused. And so, carrying all that with me, and realizing that I don't have the skills anymore because I'm not in survival mode anymore. It really deteriorated my mental health to the point where I did swallow an entire bottle of pills. And I feel very lucky that I'm even sitting here right now because a lot of the conversations that I heard at the doctor's office were the doctor screaming at my mom, like why didn't you get her help earlier, you're very lucky that she didn't die because she very well could have. And after, like, having my stomach pumped and having they wanted to keep me in for suicide protocol. But again, because my parents were there and with the stigmas of alcoholism and you're not allowed to talk about your struggles and they didn't want me kept in the hospital for over a week. I felt like I had to lie to the hospital just to preserve this image of myself to my parents that I was okay when I wasn't. And so, lying it wasn't the right thing to do at that time. But I was 19 and didn't understand what was going on. I just knew that I was hurting, I knew I was in so much pain. And I knew that my parents were not in a place to be able to help me because of not only my father's addiction, but also because of the experiences I grew up with my mom, where my mom never took a lot of my mental health stuff seriously. And she still does not to this day. And so, like when you have that dynamic of you're unsure if you're even going to be taken seriously if you try to advocate for yourself, and especially as a middle child where a lot of my valid concerns were ignored or dismissed or I constantly get interrupted. It felt like that was the pivotal moment for me where I knew that I had to start taking care of myself. Because if I didn't take care of myself, then nobody else would. And so, that was more of the trauma-based like PTSD of I'm hyper vigilant, I have to take care of myself. Because I didn't think that anybody else cared to or would or take me seriously.

Paul Meunier 

Thank you for that beautiful answer and for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. I'm sure our listeners really feel connected to you. You told that in such a humble, honest yet really vulnerable way. Thank you.

Paul Meunier 

Ashley, we have to take a short break, but we'll come right back, I'd like to just check in quickly where things are with your family. So, we'll be right back.

Jade Schleif 

No matter how you support our young people, The Professional Youth Worker, powered by YIPA, has your training and learning needs covered. Visit training.yipa.org, that's training.yipa.org to see for yourself, and then join the 1000s of youth workers around the globe who learn from our easy to access exceptional trainings. From our blogs to our podcast, The Professional Youth Worker is your go-to resource for tools to help you keep going, keep learning and keep growing. Members enjoy free unlimited access to Live Online and On-Demand trainings, and a preferred discount pricing for our one-of-a-kind certificate course. Annual memberships are ridiculously affordable for individuals and organizations. Visit training.yipa.org today to learn more. That's training.yipa.org.

Paul Meunier 

Ashley, right before the break I mentioned I'd like to hear how things are with your mom and dad now and your siblings. How is your relationship with them now?

Ashley Daniels 

Yeah, so I would say that the biggest growth that I have seen are both in the people who probably harmed me the most, my dad and my sister. My dad is surprisingly the person that I talked to the most now. I never envisioned that he would be the person that I would go to if I needed support because of how unsupported I have felt from him in the past. But I do also think that because he's in the final stages of his life where he was diagnosed with stage four COPD, where I feel like he is kind of facing a lot of the things that he put my siblings and myself through and a lot of the things that he has said and done to my mom, that I've seen the most growth come from him. And then also with my sister, I, over Christmas it was a really hard time for me because there was a really tough discussion that my mom immediately tried to have with me which wasn't the right place for this conversation to take place. But it really was the first time where I finally stood up for myself and I vocalized, you don't get to tell me how I experience my disabilities anymore. You don't get to tell me if I'm forcing my seizures for attention. You don't get to tell me that the things that I'm experiencing aren't real anymore. because I know them, I experienced them, and you don't have the authority to tell me that anymore. And so, for me, that whole Christmas was so overwhelming and overstimulating for me because I didn't even walk in the door for five minutes, and I was in tears. And my sister was the one who after I'd said I just need to lay down she was the one who checked in on me. And for the first time in my life, she apologized for everything. And she knew and understood how deeply she had hurt me. After going through a lot of the things that she has gone through where she's gone through addiction, she's gone through mental illness battles, she's gone through so much in her life to that I think both of us have collectively come together to recognize that we were both deeply harmed so much in this, and our relationship has grown a lot stronger. As far as my brother and my mother, it's still really hard for me to talk about those relationships because again, my mom is a person who has not taken me seriously. Like, anytime I've needed to go to a doctor past a certain age, it's always been a battle with her. And again, I think that also stems from her trauma of her parents never took her to the doctor when she had valid concerns. And so because I had a lot of like medical concerns growing up like I had strep throat every, every month for a really long time until I got my tonsils removed. I had like wisdom teeth removals, I had my gallbladder removed at the age of 22. Like I've gone through a lot of medical needs. And I think that, you know, with all the things that she has experienced throughout her life and also she had told me that my experiences make it very difficult for her to want to be my mom. Especially with the development of my seizures. And especially after the very tough conversation after Christmas. I have a very strange relationship with my mom. And I don't know if someday I will feel comfortable enough to want to talk to her about these issues or if she will even take me seriously but part of having to repair it myself and grow up for myself is that I need to take myself seriously and know that what I'm experiencing is real and valid and that there are names to my experiences, such as autism, ADHD, non-epileptic seizures, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder. When it comes to my brother, knowing now what I do know about him, you know, as this year embarks, and he's the first one in our family to get married, I want to be able to celebrate him wholeheartedly. And I want him to be in my life, I want to have a relationship with him, and his new fiancé slash his wife in October. It's just really hard to know what that will look like.

Paul Meunier 

Thank you for sharing all that. Beautifully said. And I hope that you continue to establish good relationships with your mother and your brother as well. And I'm so proud that you were able to stand up for yourself and started taking all the things you've gone through and putting them on the table for what they really are. And as a way to learn to adapt and adjust to them. You know, you and I share a love for running. And I know running kind of helps you stay grounded and keeps you mentally and physically healthy. Can you tell me, we're both runners, we could probably spend a half hour talking about running but just one question. What is it about running for you that just helps you stay clear and focused and moving in the right direction?

Ashley Daniels 

Yeah, so I'll just add before I get into why running is specifically important to me, that growing up I was always someone who wanted to move my body. And I didn't know at the time that I was using athletics as sensory-seeking behavior. So like, I've done so many sports in my life. I've done soccer, I've done karate, I've done running, swimming, rowing, basketball, volleyball, golf, bowling, like, there are so many sports that I have done that I didn't realize how important movement and athletics were for me. And so like running is my biggest special interest now. So, for those who don't know about autism, it's part of the diagnostic criteria where it's classified under fixated interests under Criterion B, which put in more simple terms is a special interest, something that you just have a lot of excitement about. And it can be, for those who don't understand, considered an obsession. But it's something that I even took classes to be a coach to, like, fully understand and embrace the sport. But I think what keeps me grounded in all of it is knowing how happy it makes me to, you know, experience the sensory aspects of it. So, feeling the wind go through my hair, sometimes running in the rain, a lot of people call me, they say, why would you ever do that for running in the snow? Like I do run when it's minus 10 degrees out. I just love it. It's a different type of sensory aspects of like, you put on so many different clothes and the wind is just hitting your face and the lashicles like there's so many sensory aspects to running in of itself that make me so happy. But also running is one of those sports that you get what you put into it. And so, like throughout this entire journey for me as a runner, like, I've put in so much to the sport that like I've gone from running a 6:02 marathon to a 4:02 marathon. And it's a sport that I constantly can see myself improving and growing not only as a runner, but also as a person as I navigate a lot of things throughout my life.

Paul Meunier 

Well, I share your passion, and my wife would probably say I share your compulsion to get out and run. That's the word I was looking for. Because I love to run no matter what the conditions are too. That's part of the experience. And maybe someday, Ashley, we'll get to go for a run, but you have to promise will you slow down for me, because I'm not very fast?

Ashley Daniels 

I will just preface and say that I am, I considered, I don't consider myself a fast runner. And a lot of the times when I am running like 5k's and 10k's and seeing eight-minute miles on the clock like my brain is still in that moment where I've been a 13 minute per mile runner. I just, I still can't believe it. So, like please know that I don't consider myself a fast runner.

Paul Meunier 

Well, I bet you you're faster than I am. So anyways, we could talk about running forever, probably. But in your opinion, I know that you're now a champion for other people against ableism. Why do you think there is so much ableism, why do you think that's so prevalent?

Ashley Daniels 

I mean, put very simply, it was the way that society was taught to view disabled people. Like to put things into perspective, disabled people did not get the right to go to school until 1975 through the ADA. Like that is not very long ago. And there were ugly laws put in place for disabled people to not be able to show our faces in public, especially if someone had a physical disability. The world has always been taught to view disabled people as lesser than, and so especially in specific situations and settings like especially in medical settings, where disabled people need the most support, as well as education. And specifically in my background, and the ways that I challenge ableism and the ways that I've presented it to educators and people who do care about disabled people in education, both disabled students and faculty alike, is that when you challenge ableism, you are challenging the status quo. Teachers especially like going through a teaching program myself, for a master's degree, teachers are taught how to be ableist without actually knowing that that's what they're being taught. They're being taught compliance-based teaching styles that do not center on servicing the whole student. And they're being taught that a lot of aspects specifically, when it comes to neurodivergent students, are disruptive or non-compliant. And like pushing students, especially autistic students to feel forced to mask in order to survive. And so, again, when you stand up against ableism, you are standing against the very foundations of how a lot of these systemic structures, like the medical field, education, like the law itself, etc, were built upon. And again, it's not just ableism that these systems are built on. They're also built on racism and sexism, and xenophobia, and classism. And so intersectionally, you have to challenge them all in order to be able to provide equitable education or equitable medical service. And if you're not fully recognizing ableism in conjunction to racism, you are going to leave behind Black, Indigenous, and disabled people of color. And again, adding to that if you're not acknowledging sexism, misogyny, and misogynoir, you're going to leave behind Black, Indigenous, and disabled women or disabled feminine presenting, or disabled trans, disabled LGBTQIA plus people of color.

Paul Meunier 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on that. I concur with you 100%. As a father of a disabled daughter who is an adult now, I see ableism every day in my life. And it's great to see people like us speaking up for people like my daughter. So, thank you for doing that. We're near the end of the time, but I have one last question I'd like to ask you before we close our episode. What would you say to youth workers about the importance of paying attention to neurodiversity in their support of young people?

Ashley Daniels 

Yeah, so I'll just say that neurodiversity in itself is a giant socio-political umbrella term to describe an array of disabilities such as autism, ADHD, any type of seizures, whether they're epileptic, non-epileptic, OCD, any type of personality disorder, any type of mental illness, but also cerebral palsy, Bell's Palsy, Down syndrome, intellectual disability. So, keeping in mind that neurodiversity is such a huge umbrella term, that there are a lot of things that can be missed if you are not taking a look at a student from a whole perspective. So, getting to know them, building those relationships, because I feel like even though I did build positive relationships with my teachers, they only saw me for my academics and didn't see how badly I was struggling on a social level. And if I had teachers, coaches, adults in my life, who saw me wholeheartedly for who I am and how badly I was struggling, that would have helped me out so much to navigate the world a lot kinder to myself, and to give myself a lot more grace. And so I'll just say, for anybody who's working with youth, the signs are there if students are struggling. You just have to be caring enough and diligent enough to be able to identify the signs, especially on an intersectional level. Because specifically for the youth that I serve, refugee youth, they've gone through horrible atrocities such as war, such as resettlement, such as being a newly arrived person in a country and so they're going to present those same types of neurodiversities very differently because of culturally how they navigated the world. And so again, the signs are there. You just have to know how to look for them.

Paul Meunier 

Ashley, thank you for sharing all your wisdom, your insight, and your understanding, and also for sharing your personal story. This is what we hope to do on The Passionate Youth Worker is understand how we all have our own strengths. And we all have our own vulnerabilities. And as youth workers, it's important to tap into what they are, and to use what we can to help our young people in any way we can. And I'm so grateful that you are doing the work that you are doing in bringing neurodiversity and ableism and shining a light on it so that it helps other young people down the road. And maybe their experiences could be just a little bit better than yours were, so they don't have to go through some of the things you've had to endure. So, I really want to thank you for the work you're doing. And personally, I'd like to thank you for being a guest on our podcast. So, thank you.

Ashley Daniels 

Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Paul Meunier 

You're welcome. Before we go, Ashley, what words of wisdom or inspiration would you like to leave with the listeners?

Ashley Daniels 

I would say that words of inspiration I guess would be if you're somebody working with youth, service the whole student, get to know them, build relationships, because those are relationships, you don't know how not only empowering they can be but how life changing they can be. And you never know, you could save somebody's life without even actually knowing it. And I know that a lot of youth work is planting the seeds that you might not be able to see grow down the line. But just know that if you are taking the time to build those relationships, to truly care about your students, and to get to know them wholeheartedly, they're going to succeed because of you.

Paul Meunier 

If you would like to share your passion for youth work, we'd love to spotlight you as a guest. If you have feedback about the show, please let us know. Just visit training.yipa.org, that's training.yipa.org and click on the podcast tab. This podcast is made possible in part due to a generous contribution from M Health Fairview. I'm your host, Paul Meunier. Thanks for listening to The Passionate Youth Worker.